REPLACED is one of those games that makes a massive impact on you from the very first frame, as the pixelated dystopic world burns into your retinas. It’s an unbelievably gorgeous game in motion, but underneath the dazzling veneer is a fascinating fusion of mechanics from distinct pillars of the action genre, put together in a way that I haven’t often seen before. Even though I only had roughly an hour with REPLACED, I’m already hopeful that the long wait for it might have paid off.
At first glance, REPLACED might look like it fits squarely in the Cyberpunk genre, but things are a little more complicated than that. The twist here is that the game takes place in an alternate 1980s America, in a landscape scarred by nuclear war. REPLACED does have that neon-lite Cyberpunk aesthetic, but mixes it with a retrofuturist slant, taking you through desolate eclectic cities filled with dilapidated buildings. You take on the role of an artificial intelligence named R.E.A.C.H., trapped in the body of a human named Warren against its will.
The short demo took place somewhat into the game, and while I couldn’t get a real sense of the story itself, REPLACED does a phenomenal job of nailing its tone and vibe. The decrepit village I crawled through absolutely oozed tension and a sense of history, with remnants of past civilization poking through – from a town hall plastered with political banners to the hulking factory where abandoned machines loom in the background.
There’s some clearly strong worldbuilding going on, but what really elevates it is the game’s impeccable sense of style. REPLACED is a 2.5D sidescroller, essentially meaning you progress along a 2D plane, but can sometimes move between the background and foreground — and there’s a real sense of depth to everything. A big part of that is because all of the characters are seemingly rendered in full 3D, then converted into sprites. This allows REPLACED to play with your perspective in some incredibly smart ways, zooming in on your character as you execute enemies, or quickly zooming into your hand holding a BlackBerry-esque device when you pull up the menu.
“Even though I only had roughly an hour with REPLACED, I’m already hopeful that the long wait for it might have paid off.”
The visual flair of REPLACED is clearly the game’s killer app, while the gameplay side of things feels not quite exceptional, but rock solid. What’s fascinating about it all, though, is that on a mechanical level, REPLACED feels like the adventure games we’ve been playing for decades, just through a different lens. The most direct comparison is Uncharted, both in terms of combat and environmental navigation.
As you progress through levels, you’ll need to platform, puzzle solve, and beat up hordes of mutated humans. And that platforming sure does feel a lot like Uncharted, signposting elements of the environment that you can climb and swing from. But it all feels surprisingly intuitive as well, whether you’re flipping to the other side of a neon sign or making that big jump over a pit just to grab onto the far edge by a fingertip.
Equally, the game’s combat rips a page right out of the book of the Batman Arkham games, giving you melee combos, little marks over the enemy’s heads appear to let you know when to counter, and ranged attacks have glowing white lines to help you dodge. It’s the Arkaham combat system to a tee, with a few extra surprises added to the mix, like a gun gauge that charges up as your combo counter does, letting you blast away an enemy in a super satisfying shot when full.
Most of these elements are things we’ve seen in countless games before, but REPLACED puts them in a dynamic and visually arresting 2.5D format, which goes a long way in making the whole package feel like something unique. And that’s what has me excited.
Sure, REPLACED is doing a lot of things that I’ve seen before, but I’ve never experienced quite this way — it’s like a recipe that swaps out a few of the ingredients, leaving your palette guessing at what that new taste is.
It’s been a long time since the announcement of REPLACED in 2021, but even this small snippet of the game feels confident. A confidence that you don’t necessarily have to reinvent the wheel, if you can take a bunch of pieces of other things and put them together in a new, compelling way. Now, I can’t wait to see how the whole thing pans out.
